A cupboard existence
I live out of a cupboard. All my worldly possessions fit into one cupboard in my bedroom. There has been a lot of pressure from my wife to expand my life, my possessions beyond this cupboard. But I have resisted so far.
I have been decluttering my life ever since I retired. My cupboard has everything that I live off. My clothes, my papers, my memorabilia, my travel kits, and other small stuff that one tend to gather when one reaches the age of 68.
The cupboard I have has innumerable compartments, even hidden ones. They crisscross like the pattern of life I have lived. As I like sorted life, this complexity in design gives me the thrill to store my things in an amazingly sorted manner.
I vividly recall my first cupboard when I was 8. I shared that with my elder brother who bullied me to surrender more space to him beyond his entitlement. Those days my worldly possession comprised 2 shirts, one-half pant, one towel that we shared, school books, marbles, a tennis ball, and a tin box with few coins.
Some years later, as a young adult, I lost cupboard privilege. I think we rented that part of the house for generating some income after our father died. I was left with a roughly hewn wooden table as my life anchor. I struggled to store everything table that had no drawers. My most embarrassing struggle was to find a hidden space for the dirty magazines that I secretly smuggled into the house.
As I moved on in life, things changed, but my life remained confined to one cupboard. A crisis arose when I acquired my first suit at 48. I did not have the wardrobe to store suit. So I cut open a few compartments of my cupboard to make space for this suit. In order to not repeat such a crisis, I no longer purchase anything that does not fit into my life and my cupboard.
Sometimes with nothing else to do, I stand in front of my cupboard, and my life flashes before me. My travel kits remind me of my globe-trotting days; a sticker of Hilton Bogota faded and staring at me. My collection of ties brings back the memory of every person who gifted me. The handwritten poems of my youth are now hidden away behind a pile of stuff, like my youth itself hidden behind years I have traversed.
I am now in a giving away mode and want to empty some space from my cupboard, just so that I can fold more memories and put them on those empty shelves. I need them more than anything else for the rest of my years.
Also, read the previous blog
Life, less cluttered
I admit my life was less cluttered already. I was a fastidious person from childhood and brooked no clutter around me. Maybe I was cluttered in my heart and soul but not physically. My habits were clean and efficient, my manners, impeccable, cupboards military neat and office desk as clean as Jack Welch’s. So anxiety set in when I embarked upon this retirement project of decluttering my life Ike all retirees. I am always on the lookout for a new project. In my case, my sinful restlessness makes it almost mandatory to look for one project a week. So I was hopelessly mixed up last week when I sat about this project. Truth be told, outside my own cupboard, desk and little wardrobe, the scope of my de-cluttering was very little. The rest of the house is anyways out of bound for me, like for all retirees. So one Sunday afternoon, fortified with a pint of Corona, I sat about de-cluttering my adult life of 45 years. Cloths first. I did not possess many suits but all except one have to go. I no longer wear them. Out went -with suits- all my outdated corporate attitudes and false pretenses. I did not need these either. One black suit I kept was for possible funeral attendance as I live in a predominantly Catholic suburb. Shirts & trousers. Well, I need trousers but most white shirts go out. I am now living on half a dozen T-shirts for the past 9 months after retirement. On occasion, I throw on a jacket to be a little formal. I began wearing white shirts about two decades ago. Firstly to calm my raging aggressiveness and secondly to avoid choices. I realize that choice is an evil of life. My life would have been much simpler had I got fewer choices. I had dozens of other cloth accessories that I am keeping on. These are useful when you travel and have no access to a washing machine. Next to de-clutter is my pile of books and papers. Over 50 years, I gathered books like any other middle-class man. I thrived in reading them, lending them and displaying them. Alas, no one borrows them anymore, we have no display space and my joy of reading has shifted loyalty to Kindle. So all books have to go except a few of John Grisham that I read repeatedly when I am depressed and want some excitement. Papers next. Dump all the certificates of school and college events into a junk pile. These were junk, to begin with, and got me nowhere in life when I won them. Only if I had not pursued these and followed my heart! All the awards, trophies also to be dumped. They were as frivolous as my attitude toward life when I won them. Next came my degree and diploma certificates that had no value, to begin with. They taught me the wrong things and misled me to believe that I was educated. My illiterate grandmother was perhaps more educated in terms of life learning that these degrees gave me. One of my cupboard drawers revealed knick-knacks of my 40 years of travel. God knows why I collected them. A plaque claiming I have climbed Great Wall of China, miniature Eiffel Tower, paperweight inscribing my visit to London Eye and ridiculously designed statue of Jesus Christ, protector of Rio. These I kept aside for someone young who is still excited about life & travel. And finally, and longingly, I looked at a notebook of handwritten poetry, penned at an age when I wanted to change the world and was burning with anger. This I kept aside for me. Just in case, if I can reignite that fire in me again some say.
Also, read the previous blog
Life, less cluttered
I admit my life was less cluttered already. I was a fastidious person from childhood and brooked no clutter around me. Maybe I was cluttered in my heart and soul but not physically. My habits were clean and efficient, my manners, impeccable, cupboards military neat and office desk as clean as Jack Welch’s. So anxiety set in when I embarked upon this retirement project of decluttering my life Ike all retirees. I am always on the lookout for a new project. In my case, my sinful restlessness makes it almost mandatory to look for one project a week. So I was hopelessly mixed up last week when I sat about this project. Truth be told, outside my own cupboard, desk and little wardrobe, the scope of my de-cluttering was very little. The rest of the house is anyways out of bound for me, like for all retirees. So one Sunday afternoon, fortified with a pint of Corona, I sat about de-cluttering my adult life of 45 years. Cloths first. I did not possess many suits but all except one have to go. I no longer wear them. Out went -with suits- all my outdated corporate attitudes and false pretenses. I did not need these either. One black suit I kept was for possible funeral attendance as I live in a predominantly Catholic suburb. Shirts & trousers. Well, I need trousers but most white shirts go out. I am now living on half a dozen T-shirts for the past 9 months after retirement. On occasion, I throw on a jacket to be a little formal. I began wearing white shirts about two decades ago. Firstly to calm my raging aggressiveness and secondly to avoid choices. I realize that choice is an evil of life. My life would have been much simpler had I got fewer choices. I had dozens of other cloth accessories that I am keeping on. These are useful when you travel and have no access to a washing machine. Next to de-clutter is my pile of books and papers. Over 50 years, I gathered books like any other middle-class man. I thrived in reading them, lending them and displaying them. Alas, no one borrows them anymore, we have no display space and my joy of reading has shifted loyalty to Kindle. So all books have to go except a few of John Grisham that I read repeatedly when I am depressed and want some excitement. Papers next. Dump all the certificates of school and college events into a junk pile. These were junk, to begin with, and got me nowhere in life when I won them. Only if I had not pursued these and followed my heart! All the awards, trophies also to be dumped. They were as frivolous as my attitude toward life when I won them. Next came my degree and diploma certificates that had no value, to begin with. They taught me the wrong things and misled me to believe that I was educated. My illiterate grandmother was perhaps more educated in terms of life learning that these degrees gave me. One of my cupboard drawers revealed knick-knacks of my 40 years of travel. God knows why I collected them. A plaque claiming I have climbed Great Wall of China, miniature Eiffel Tower, paperweight inscribing my visit to London Eye and ridiculously designed statue of Jesus Christ, protector of Rio. These I kept aside for someone young who is still excited about life & travel. And finally, and longingly, I looked at a notebook of handwritten poetry, penned at an age when I wanted to change the world and was burning with anger. This I kept aside for me. Just in case, if I can reignite that fire in me again some say.
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